{"id":73389,"date":"2025-12-17T15:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/73389\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T15:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:42:10","slug":"new-tech-company-hera-seeks-to-offer-affordable-care-for-aging-new-yorkers-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/73389\/","title":{"rendered":"New tech company, Hera, seeks to offer affordable care for aging New Yorkers \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new tech company is striving to make it easier for New Yorkers to find care and resources for their aging parents, regardless of their economic status.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Hera<\/a> \u2014 founded by Jenny Lee, Connie Kang and Myles Novick \u2014 is using artificial intelligence, experienced social workers, and new Medicare rules to provide affordable geriatric care management to families who might not normally be able to afford the help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s senior population is growing steadily as baby boomers age, and many are staying at home, relying on loved ones for care and support. But their adult children often struggle to find and pay for resources like in-home aides, medications and transit, and navigating government benefits and other benefits can become a full-time job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"HeraHera co-founders Jenny Lee, Connie Kang and Myles Novick. Photo courtesy of Hera<\/p>\n

Lee, a software engineer who previously worked at Google and Uber, recognized those struggles for the first time a few years ago, when her grandmother died after a long battle with dementia. Lee\u2019s aunt, who she described as an \u201calpha daughter,\u201d had been her grandmother\u2019s primary caretaker for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just, from the sidelines, thought she was a complete superhero. She was an architect, she was raising children, she was taking care of my grandmother,\u201d Lee said. \u201cBut it was at the memorial service that I realized she actually just fully broke during that whole journey.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, Lee was working at mental health-focused tech company Headway. After years of working at more traditional tech firms like Google and Uber, the job made her realize she wanted to keep using technology to help people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, Hera was born. In development, the team interviewed more than 100 adult children who were caring for their aging parents, Lee said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all said the same thing. They were like, \u2018I\u2019m lost, spending hours on the phone, hours online, running into dead end after dead end, I don\u2019t know where to turn to, what my options are,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"seniorsHera aims to support aging New Yorkers and their families, providing much-needed resources and support. Screenshot courtesy of Hera<\/p>\n

Two families they interviewed hadn\u2019t struggled so much, Lee said, and they had something in common. Both had hired a geriatric care manager to take on the responsibility of enrolling their parents in government benefits, finding support services like in-home aides and transportation, and advocating for care from insurance and healthcare providers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Geriatric care managers \u2014 who are usually social workers \u2014 are experts in navigating complex systems, securing resources, and creating long-term care plans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But their services can cost as much as $250 per hour.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I looked at the landscape, I realized those that have money are able to put money toward the problem. Then you have the lower-income class who qualify for Medicaid, which is at least a shredded safety net,\u201d Lee said. \u201cBut then you have what I call the forgotten middle class. And they end up depleting all their assets until they\u2019re on Medicaid, and that\u2019s the population I really wanted to build for, and definitely where my family falls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two things shifted to allow Hera to support those middle-class families, Lee explained. Medicare came out with new codes that meant care management would be covered by insurance, and artificial intelligence began to advance.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy two cofounders and I all come from technology backgrounds, and we were like, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s leverage AI to actually build for a population that\u2019s traditionally left behind,\u201d she said. \u201cWe wanted to build a company where we can help humans do what humans do best, which is foster human connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Hera\u2019s soft launch in early December, the company had a team of 15 care managers \u2014 called \u201cHeroes\u201d \u2014 most of whom are experienced geriatric social workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"heraHera\u2019s founders and some of its care team. Photo courtesy of Hera<\/p>\n

After a consultation, clinical assessment and direct meetings with family members and the parent themselves, the Heroes help create a care plan and begin to carry it out, keeping in regular contact with the family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Heroes mostly offer help in four areas, Lee said: coordinated referrals, medications, benefits navigation, and Medicaid.\n<\/p>\n

Coordinated referrals can include a range of services, from home care and visiting doctors to safety equipment and transportation to and from appointments. Hera works with a series of trusted partners to set services up quickly and easily.<\/p>\n

For medications, Hera\u2019s Heroes work directly with a client\u2019s primary care physician and the pharmacy to create pre-sorted blister packs of all their medications, which are shipped directly to their homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benefits navigation is wide-ranging, and includes both insurance and community resources<\/a>, Lee said. One client, a former swimmer, was struggling physically and mentally without access to his favorite pastime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ended up getting him aquatic therapy covered by Medicare, and it was a game-changer in terms of his personal happiness,\u201d Lee said. \u201cBut, you know, he didn\u2019t even realize it was a covered benefit and that\u2019s something we can get you set up with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"seniorHera\u2019s Heroes can help coordinate in-home services and prescription drug deliveries. Photo courtesy of Yaroslav Shuraev\/<\/p>\n

Many of Hera\u2019s middle-class clients are not enrolled in Medicaid to start with, Lee said. They\u2019re often required to spend down their assets before they become eligible, and Hera can help them with the approvals process. Once someone is enrolled, \u201cit takes a little bit of advocacy to get them the care that they need,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many, many solo older adults that have been cycling in and out of the hospital constantly, we\u2019ve been able to fight and get 24\/7 care and making sure that we keep them safely at home, because now they have that person who can help make sure they don\u2019t fall, or help make sure that they\u2019re taking their meds, and help them to do all those activities of daily living around the house,\u201d Lee said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hera\u2019s services are usually covered entirely by Medicare, Lee said. Most clients pay nothing out-of-pocket, and those who pay $15 per hour.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe bill Medicare directly,\u201d Lee said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pain that goes into working with insurance, but that\u2019s one of the key ways to make it affordable. And then it\u2019s leveraging technology to make sure we\u2019re spending our humans\u2019 time in the right way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where Hera\u2019s AI comes into play. The company developed an operating system, Hera OS, where the Heroes manage all of their care plans, tasks, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The system helps with task management, to allow care managers to make the most of their time helping families. It might suggest that a voice agent sit on hold with Medicaid for several hours, freeing the care manager up for other tasks, or suggest alternatives for a long daily to-do list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Billing and documentation is entirely automated, Lee said, so care managers don\u2019t have to spend hours on administrative tasks.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

It is also a resource database that will keep growing over time. When one Hero discovers a new service \u2014 like an affordable hoarding resource \u2014 they\u2019ll plug it into the system, which can then suggest it to other managers dealing with similar issues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cOur platform itself is actually quite intelligent and can suggest the right things for families and can learn from, over time, the thousands of Heroes that will be placing calls in different local communities and understanding the different nuances about insurance,\u201d Lee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Novick, Hera\u2019s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, regularly meets with the Heroes to discuss the issues they\u2019re facing and build new elements of the OS to meet their needs.<\/p>\n

Hera plans to keep expanding across New York City and eventually nationwide, Lee said, using its operating system to support more and more Heroes. She wants Hera to become both a trusted resource and a way for adult children to take back valuable time with their parents, rather than spending hours on the phone or online struggling to find care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is talking about AI, and there\u2019s so much hype around it,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat\u2019s been interesting to me is we\u2019re kind of waiting for a crisis. It\u2019s already starting to unfold, it\u2019s starting to happen with this aging population. I think oftentimes, because it\u2019s something that\u2019s hard to talk about, it is something we kind of try to push aside. That was really our focus. This is a massive population, it\u2019s going to touch all of our lives at some point, and how to we build something for that upfront versus being hit with it down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new tech company is striving to make it easier for New Yorkers to find care and resources…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[37168,3250,66,10476,10605,128,98,37169,37170,37171,2953,4429,37172,37173,13319,37174,7050,2517,33035,37175,9,24,8783,370,63,37176,37177,37178,1578,13367,13623,282,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-73389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-aging-parents","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-baby-boomers","tag-benefits","tag-bronx","tag-brooklyn","tag-connie-kang","tag-cto","tag-geriatric-care-management","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-hera","tag-in-home-aides","tag-insurance","tag-jenny-lee","tag-medicaid","tag-medicare","tag-medication","tag-myles-novick","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-yorkers","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-prescription-drugs","tag-prescriptions","tag-senior-care","tag-seniors","tag-services","tag-social-workers","tag-technology","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}